


Not in Service

by Roselightfairy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, Season 6/7 Gapfiller, Warning for mentions of canon events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29632338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: "We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service." -various automatic phone recordingsBuffy doesn't realize until she's gone how much she had come to rely on Tara.
Relationships: Tara Maclay & Buffy Summers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Not in Service

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you wake up at 5am with feelings about Buffy and Tara and you absolutely need to write a fic _right now._ I didn't even try for Buffy-voice, so this is probably a little OOC, sorry. Be warned for references to many of the sad, traumatic, and complicated things that happen in season 6.

So many times, over that long, strange Willowless summer, Buffy finds herself wanting to call Tara.

She’s almost surprised herself at how often it happens – how many different situations in which the urge arises, and how casually painful it is every time. When school gets out and Dawn is alone all day because Buffy is working those grueling shifts at the Doublemeat Palace, comes home with her feet aching yearning for nothing more than to rest before patrol and Dawn is there, eager to talk because she hasn’t seen anyone all day, and Buffy can’t bear to keep letting her down. When Dawn is craving some food that Tara and Willow made her during that summer Buffy was dead, even though she doesn’t want to say the d-word. (Buffy will say it; she’s not one for shying away from the truth, even if the people around her are, but it’s easier to acknowledge that she was dead and gone than to become a replacement for the system her friends developed in her absence.)

It almost feels like the those first days after her mother’s death – and how far away those memories seem now, one stint in heaven and then living hell ago – when she was trying to take care of Dawn alone and found herself stumbling again and again into some strange invisible barrier in her own knowledge, one thing after another that she didn’t know, and she could never have imagined it would be this hard. But then she had worry for Dawn and the impending battle with Glory to distract her from the simple grief. Now it’s just that sudden shock of memory, that reminder that there is no one on the other end, and then that heavy hollowness in her stomach as she fumbles her way through whatever she was trying to do alone.

It’s not just domestic things, either, when she finds herself picking up the phone. When a new demon arises over the summer with some strange psychic powers and she and Xander and Dawn can’t muddle their way through research alone and she wishes she had someone who knew about magic – and it must be a sign of how well she’d been recovering that Buffy’s first instinct is still Tara, rather than Willow. (She ends up calling Giles for that one, just for advice, and getting an update on Willow’s recovery and retraining that just makes it ache all the more.)

Tara was so quiet – at first, and even later, even after she started speaking up more, taking up more space – that Buffy supposes she just didn’t realize how deeply she’d been winding her way into her life. Into all their lives.

But none of that is the worst part.

The worst part is when she finishes an unsatisfying patrol and finds herself jittering with unspent energy, or when she’s trudging home after an exhausting day at work that threatens to bring the life-is-hell viewpoint crashing right back down onto her and her feet turn instinctively in the direction of Spike’s crypt. When she wakes up in the middle of the night from a dream that twists threads of old grief with everything she hates about her life now – and it’s not everything, it’s really not, but it’s still enough, sometimes, to leave her doubting – or from one of the rarer dreams now, the memories fleeting, that recaptures some of that perfect bliss and freedom that was ripped away from her – and finds herself twisted in her sheets, face wet with tears, hands gripping poor Mr. Gordo so hard it’s a wonder she hasn’t squeezed out his stuffing, desperately needing something to ground her, to remind her why she’s still alive – and for moments she forgets why she shouldn’t go to him – why she _can’t_ go to him. Why she couldn’t even if he were here – but if he _were_ here, at least she might be able to find some resolution for the draw she still feels, then the sick betrayal that hits her every time, moments after. She knows heartbreak, and this is something more complicated than that – some trust she didn’t realize she placed in him – some remnant of feeling she still can’t shake – and there’s _no one else_ she can talk to about it.

Dawn – she’s not used to letting Dawn in, still. For all her determination to rebuild her life, _their_ lives, to trust Dawn to be there and to take care of herself and to really talk to her, she’s still not used to really letting her in – letting the walls drop, letting herself be weak. And she couldn’t let her in on this anyway, not when Dawn’s face closes up and her voice drops a pitch whenever Spike’s name is so much as mentioned. (Because it happens sometimes; he wound his way into their lives just as surely as Tara did.) Xander is even worse; Buffy dreads the thought of even accidentally bringing Spike up around him. It’s sweet, in a way, the way they’re both determined to defend her, the way they’ve closed ranks around her – but Buffy isn’t sure if that kind of defense is what she wants, and there are times she just wishes she could _talk_ about it, and Tara –

And Tara let her talk. She didn’t realize until those awful days just how much she’d been missing that. How much she needed it. Tara let her talk, let her cry, even, and held her head and told her it was okay, she was okay, and –

And she didn’t realize how long it’s been since anyone did that for her. Since she _let_ anyone do that for her. And she wants it so badly, some days, that she feels she’s being scraped out with the urge.

Is this how they felt when _she_ was gone? Like the person they’d looked to for answers, for strength, was no longer there and they were stumbling around that empty space in their souls?

She and Dawn visit the grave on Tuesdays. Sometimes Xander comes with, or Anya – though never at the same time. The cemetery is strange in daylight, but at least this is one grave they know will stay peaceful. They stand there, holding hands, and look at her name carved into the headstone. Some days they talk, sharing happy or sad memories; some days they cry – other days they just stand in silence and remember on their own.

“She’s happy, right?” says Dawn one day, her voice trembling. “Where she – where she is?”

Buffy’s throat contracts with a hard lump, and she swallows hard. Squeezes Dawn’s hand, warm and a little damp and so very _real_. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, she is.”

The urge to pick up the phone is nearly irresistible, some days. But she needs these trips, these questions, to remind her why she can never call again.


End file.
